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Good-sense colour-coding rule-change !

Visit our new homepage www.roxan.co.uk

It was worth waiting for December because the rules did change to allow our good-sense colour-coding system to become legitimate after all that stramash described below.

November has seen some interesting moments ! We had ba heart stopping spell when were asked by the powers that be not to sell TagFaster EID (!!) - DEFRA were concerned that we did not have a strictly yellow EID tag ! At least someone (another jealous tagmaker) had noticed our efforts to bring some 'management sense' to a partially retrograde step to force farmers to use a single colour (yellow) on one of their double tags ! Year colour coding is a useful management tool and many farmers depend on this simple visual ageing trick. Thanks to our Colour-coded 'Yellow' EID tags Farmers still retain this tool, and if a non-EID year-colour tag is lost the extra colouring on the chimney part of TagFaster EID is the same and 'all is not lost' as it is with all other tag types ! A VERY UNIQUE SELLING POINT for TAGFASTER EID, we hope at least Farmers agree ! We are sure that common sense will prevail and we have been advised to continue selling while DEFRA consult the industry about our concept. I believe that provided the bulk of the tag, in particular the printed I/D strip, is yellow, then the fixing areas could be used for branding or, more usefully, management purposes. Fingers crossed ! 
Deep into October and it was time to look at our products' performance this year in terms of Sales and Technically. We now have time to review and make adjustments, and this is an exciting prospect. Sales-wise we have, in conjunction with our wholesale-partners Quicktag, taken almost 10% of the UK tag market in only one year of active service. TagFaster has evolved from awkward teenager to super-model (maybe a slight exaggeration ?!). Nevertheless there are still improvements to make and developments to put in hand. A Senior TagFaster is in the wings and will feature a stockier pin and aRoxSolid adaption to the tag and gun to guarantee successful ear-piercing in any situation - a feature that very many farmers have asked for this year after suffering badly at the hands of thick pinned tags, at one extreme, or flimsy little tags at the other. Although we are basically delighted with feedback from TagFaster users, it hasn't been faultless.We now recognise that failure to penetrate ears has been a criticism of almost all 'simple' sheep tags for too long. RoxSolid penetration will therefore become a standard feature of our whole tag range. Watch this space.

During the last couple of days of September ....

 
...the whole of Cumbria (and no doubt much more of the UK) seemed to be carpetted with sheep !

We were delighted to meet the famous Dai Jones MBE of BBC RadioCymru at the recent Blue Leicester Tup sale at Hawes - and took the chance of presenting him with a special Welsh Rugby colours TagFaster! Radio doesn't lend itself to the promotion of TagFaster but we had some excellent celtic banter !
A couple of days before heading for Hawes the 'Department' and I had shared a 45 minute spot at the SAC's EID Information day in Dingwall Mart. I was able to THROW TagFaster onto concrete just to get the message through that it was tough. Phew - it survived about 10 chucks from at least 1 metre ! The Department didn't ! (just joking)
LOOK - Year-Colour-Coded Yellow EID Tags are a popular feature of TagFaster. More noticable than you would think - in TagFaster's transparent feed-horn AND on EARS !
  

Everyone a Winner!
The Rugby World Cup in New Zealand and the climax of the UK Prime Lamb Season coincide this year. We are producing a limited number of RWC coloured TagFasters just for May & June 2011

I am writing this having been to NSA's Northern Ireland Sheep event near Belfast, and it is the beginning of July ! Apologies for the lack of website update but our Game Farming product season has taken over ! (We invented an automatic dispenser and applicator for plastic anti-pecking beak bits years ago...called BitFitter, and having sold the business more than a decade ago we bought it back recently).

In JUne we had the Royal Highland Show at which we had the biggest stand ever for Roxan ! Although it was in an odd place (Tractor-land) we gathered the usual crowds amazingly - and not only that were awarded a Silver medal for technical innovation by the RHS Society. What's more, there was no Gold medal ! 

April 2011
I am delighted to be receiving requests - some might describe them as demands - to go and visit farmers who are finding TagFaster more challenging than they expected. I mention this because in both of the most recent and 'extreme' cases, the solution was to be found in technique. My son Gregor filmed me at both these visits and my very brief explanation to The famous Bengall Tiger, Jim Reid (sorry Jim!), is shown in this video.
...and a more comprehensive discussion with Andy Offer, in this one...
>
March 2011
What happened to March !?! Apart from the fact that our Sales around the UK, and particularly in Scotland, were starting to look healthy (when combined with the sales via QuickTag and their trading partners),  we mainly concentrated our minds on getting some loose ends tied up in the TagFaster system design. I would say that 'by Hook or by Crook' we are seeing the light at the end of the lazy-feed tunnel. The New Black Anvil has allowed us to leave the Feed Horn SLACK, which allows tags to flow more freely. The Black Anvil has a Hook and a Crook (Shepherd's variety of course!) - which both play a significant part. The Hook at the back encourages the tag to lie flat on the Anvil, becaus eit 'grabs' the paddle and forces it down. The Crook at the front of the Black anvil 'gathers' the chimeny pots of several tags as they travel towards the firing zone. This makes sure they don't escape and avoid the entering the 'pen' waiting for them in the firing zone. If you can understand half of that you deserve to use TagFaster !
February 2011
February already, and we are working very closely with QuickTag from Northern Ireland to distribute our TagFaster system throughout the Trade in the UK. Tim Rees and I are pounding the beat demonstrating TagFaster to as many distributors as possible, meeting sales staff and leaving Applicators and tags for Farmers to see and try at shops all around the country. Our key objective is to make sure people know how to use TagFaster. I know it sounds simple, but every new 'toy' has it's querks and you will get on all the better if you know them from the start.

Hill (or is it Hell?) Sheep - Querks revealed and a Useful Tagging Tip discovered .....
Tagging a week or so ago (late January) at Lumbylaw Northumberland, we struggled with some South Country Cheviots blended with Lleyn Sheep. The lugs were tough and an interesting TagFaster querk was revealed; worth taking note of...
Having a fairly curley and thick ear PLUS appearing to be standing on hot coals the whole time, it was very difficult to get a stable and flat ear to pierce. Therefore several tags were misfiring. With some effort they could be re-used (best to use the pink 'n blue hand plier) but the aim of the visit was to find out what we could do to improve the success rate.
Thankfully Mr Lee spotted a characteristic of TagFaster worth mentioning for these extreme conditions. The natural way to 'pull the trigger' of this kind of applicator is to lift the lower lever towards the upper. The trouble is that the ear and the tag is ON the lower lever, and therefore as you lift it you are disturbing the stability of the whole job. This doesn't appear to cause any problems in the majority of occasions, but in this case it was. You can see the difference that, what effectively is pushing the trigger from the top makes, in the pictures below.

In addition to Mr Lee's discovery, Shepherd Gavin also noted that, in order to tag the RIGHT EAR from the FRONT (which sounds impossible for TagFaster with it's right-side-mounted-horn), he could pull the right ear back to run it alongside the head, making the leading edge available for tagging without the sheep 'seeing you coming' ! Clever - and useful discovery.
Finally, I went away from Lumbylaw aiming to tighten my (well, TagFaster's) grip on the tag pin-head. The tighter we can hold it the more likely it is to pierce the ear. The new production Hammer has a lighter grip on the head than earlier hand-made ones which actually were too tight (they held onto the tag sometimes !). So thanks to Robert Lee and his team for teaching me a few lessons. (Lots more to come I am sure !)


v3 TagFaster
We have started (January) making the v3 TagFaster applicator which is now made up of all production parts, with no potentially-variable handwork. The application of tags is smoother and and TagFaster appplicators are lighter. We are almost there with a professional TagFaster system for the coming lambing season ! It has been much less than one year sionce we launched TagFaster and although there will always be improvements which you and I will want, it appears to be a serious contender for top tagging system of 2011.

Frozen December News
I was in Wales at the Welsh Winter Fair, in obviously very cold conditions we discovered a weakness at the bend of the non-EID TagFaster tags. It lead to an instant cure happily, which although it is 'invisible' to the naked eye, involved getting rid of a sharp edge which could cause fractures at really low temperatures. BSI (British Standards) proved that we had cured it by re-testing the tags under 'accellerated weathering' using PAS66, with a clean sheet. It's worth noting too that really cold conditions affects the bendiness of the whole strip of tags, and they flow less 'willingly' around the horn. Life would have been much easier, in actual fact, if we had gone for a 10-Tag Strip, but the advantages to be gained form 20 over 10 seemed to be worthwhile going for. I hope you will agree in the end !

October News - Double Tagging
I have been tagging HORNED LAMBS for the first time, thanks to Joe Burnett, Rhynaclach, Stirling. He used Twin yellow TagFaster tags to identify lambs for wintering. TagFaster applicator worked well, thankfully, and the tags were expertly inserted from the inside of the ear, as a colleague held the lamb by the horns. Pins penetrate better in fact from the inside, and my only concern is that that leaves the female 'chimney part' of the tag on the outside or back of the ear, potentially rubbing on the horn. Only time will tell if this has any detrimental effect on tag performance and welfare.

Jim and Graham Sinclair, The Clints Farming Partnership in the Scottish Borders, took me to the highest point on their farm (so they could throw me off if it didn't work !) to prove TagFaster on some Scottish Blackface lambs. Happily Graham got on brilliantly, despite having some difficulty forgetting some old habits picked up with our earlier 'semi-automatic' version.



David MacTaggart, Hallrule, generously let me watch him tag loads of his RomneyX lambs with Twin-TagFasters. David insists that he doesn't want the added responsibility of checking that the next tag is 'sitting comfortably' before he pulls the trigger. He needs Easycare Tagging for his Easycare Sheep ! We almost succeeded, and I left him with his favourite TagFaster, chosen from several that I had taken along to test ! They all still have a tiny amount of 'character' of their own. Until every single component is mass produced they will continue to do so. Nevertheless these two Twin Tagging experiences reported above have reassured me that we have reached the point where the final few key components have been defined.

Late September News
We have been tagging with Nigel and Angus Miller, Stagehall - with very encouraging results. Single electronic tags, fitted

to the left ear by right-handed Angus worked 'perfectly'. Angus was using TagFaster for the first time and chose to do the tagging in a single-file race. Although a right hander must always find it awkward tagging the left ear from behind, TagFasters covered feed-horn means you can access the left ear surprisingly easily. Some TagFaster users think that we designed it specifically for the left ear ! (Others don't, by the way, so please make up your own mind !) . We had an interested observer from the NFU too, Ashley Handy, and whilst Angus was happily tagging Ashley, Nigel and I were able to discuss some possible TagFaster-incentives for NFU members. 'Free Replacements' always sounds appealing, and so we are working along those lines. Fingers crossed it works both ways !
The picture above illustrates how one particularly important step forward was confirmed with this live-trial. Pin penetration has been altered dramatically by changing the profile machined in the Hammer face. You can see the pin diving perfectly vertically onto the imaginery ear, making not a splash in the water. Not only that it is very firmly held, almost locked in this position thanks to the patented bend feature in the tag. Many of our existing users had reported 'misfires' and this is how we have solved this particular problem.

Exciting News from the 8th September - after tagging some more Howden lambs - electronic tags are beginning to flow through TagFaster fully automatically. They are cutting EVERY time and the only failure was from tags not piercing the ear on the rare occasion. The changes to the applicator that have made this possible are very recent (this week) and when the tag modifications in hand are completed there will be a significantly improved TagFaster v2 available for general release. We will make some changes to the hammer tomorrow which should improve piercing and this can be confirmed when we tag around 200 lambs tomorrow afternoon.
We are on show at the Kelso Tup sales on friday - and let's hope TagFaster 2 is too !!

Another very encouraging piece of news is that despite the problems than many of our customers must be facing, traders are reporting a very positive attitude from almost everyone. The design features that we have built into TagFaster are really striking a chord, in particular the fact that the 20TagStrip is undercover. This is so useful when you struggle to reach an animal in a crowded pen. TagFaster FeedHorn can be shoved against the neigbouring lamb or even against the neck of the lamb who's left ear you are tagging, with impunity. The 20TagStrip also seem to 'last forever' !
Now some older News .....
Tagging Test ! Thanks to a very patient Farmer friend, and no doubt to 'teach me a lesson' !, I was thrown in the deep-end to tag almost 200 lambs last week (27th August). I wanted to test a TagFaster with some changes to the CLAW which drives the feed mechanism. This worked as well as expected and tags fed along, even from the start of the 20tagstrip. We will make arrangements to add this as a permanent mod to all TagFasters as soon as I can (will take 2 or 3 weeks). However my unexpected problem was the occasional lack of ear-piercing. The way I got round it was to make sure the pin was seated as far into the hammer as possible before I attempted to pierce the ear. Of course I also pressed the 'belly' of the female side of the tag to make sure it was sitting comfortably in the anvil, but this should probably be common sense.I know it all sounds like a bit of a fiddle but the tags are already in the jaws of the plier anyway, and as you find your next ear to tag there appears to be time to do this 'safety'-check. It certainly saves misfires which can be an expensive problem. Luckily our new PinknBlue hand plier saves the day if there are some individuals to fit at the end of the session. (loose tags actually be fitted back into TagFaster jaws too). More of my personal experiences later on in this page....

 

Honest feedback is what we need in order to give the farmers something that they appreciate. In return we will listen and sort it out. So please make sure you keep good and bad feedback heading our way - don't be afraid to say what you think !
TagFaster will have been seen by a lot of people at shows performing very well. It has excited the industry and if only it had performed as well in practice it would be, despite being late to the market, one of the most attractive products available to sheep farmers.

The facts are these

TagFaster performed well at Shows - specifically on non-electronic tags for the sake of demonstration
It performed, to begin with, less well on electronic tags in the field because they are different is some crucial ways - (our fault, we didn't realise we how significant the small differences would be)
We are changing the electronic tag dimensionally to make it much more similar to the non-electronic
tag
We are changing some TagFaster features to improve it's perfomance too.

The key issues WERE these ...

Lazy feed on the Automatic versions (we  sent out a number of semi-automatics initially). The eid tags didn't flex as easily as non-eid tags and they are still bodily very slightly thicker. This means they don't flow through our innovative feed horn naturally enough, as the much more flexible non-eid tags do. The spring loaded 'pecker' has much more work to do and so sometimes, especially the first half of every strip of 10 tags, the tags failed 100% to reach the jaws of the pliers. You can help them of course if you are aware of this, and the second half of the tagstrip often runs through smoothly. My recent (27th July 2010) tests of a new CLAW design (top lever) will improve the lazy feed problem, as it will also reduce the next problem of ...

Incomplete cutting of the tags - on the Automatic version. Because we tried to make the tags flow to the jaws, we  lowered the platform in the jaws (we call it the anvil) to the point where the blade did not fully cut the tags off from the strip. This was terribly annoying and we appreciated this and apologised for it. It was much more annoying than lazy feeding in fact. The cure for this was actually slightly more difficult, but has obviously been completed, and there is no doubt that the semi automatic version performed this task much better than the automatic. Of course it made absolutely no attempt to move the tags along 'automatically' and this puzzled end-users ! The new CLAW mentioned above allowed us to lengthen the blade by around 1mm which ensured that tags were cut cleanly from that moment onwards. Short term, farmers were able to make a modification themselves to the back of the hammer. There is an obvious 'bump' which dislocates the locked links and releases the hammer (and the animal) and if this is filed down it would trigger the jaw release a little later. This should have the effect of cutting and closing the tag more thoroughly. Otherwise we sent out a semi-automatic until v2 TagFaster became available.

Ear-piercing .. I have noticed as I watched others, and now experienced myself first hand the fact that our tags, unless you hit toughish ears with reasonable care then the pins can bend away. Although, perhaps like some other tags, TagFaster Tags can be re-applied successfully, it is a time if not a tag waster. I can see that we need to contain the male leg more securely and will work at modifying the hammer this week. It is an outside possiblity that the tag might have to be altered slightly to guarantee success, however I shall have my fingers crossed that the hammer mod will make a significant difference. It effectively closes the tag 1mm earlier. Doesn't sound much but ....

We have sent out TagFaster equipment to around 150 Farmers in the form of 75,000 tags, with around the same number of tags left on the order books (as of 26/08/10). We have had a number of very useful phonecalls, and I have personally gone on farm on a number of occasions to see the problems first hand. I will do this as often as necesary until we have an Electronic TagFaster as good as the original show-case non-EID version.

In fact I wish we had encouraged more non-EID tags to begin with in order for there to be a greater awareness of the high level to which TagFaster can perform in the field.

Various experiences....
The Semi Auto has puzzled people when they maybe didn't realise they were receiving it ! The lack of a spring or any means of moving the tag along makes it look as though we have 'forgotton something' ! In reality, it could actually be seen as a benefit at this stage of TagFaster EID's career. Semi-Automatic users will not have had any of the short-cutting problems described above, and although you have to shove the tags along by hand, at least they are there, ready and waiting.

The Automatic feeding function of TagFaster can be disabled by 'dislocating' the pecker. You need to pull it back against the spring and then turn it downwards fully. This then means that the ClawCam on the top lever misses the pecker completely on the downstroke and therefore no attempt is made by the TagFaster to move the tags along automatically. Recently a Father and Son preferred different options. Father disengaged the pecker and used TagFaster as a semi-automatic and Son got on with using the automatic and giving the tags a helping hand whenever necessary. 700 lambs were double tagged on that occasion and only one tag broke. Please note that disabling the Feed Function is unlikely to improve the cutting problems, although it will defintiely make TagFaster feel easier to use as you pierce the ear.

The short-cut problem which leaves Tag No 1 still attached to the TagStrip after appplying it to the ear, can be eliminated by filing down carefully the bump on the back of the Hammer, which dislocates the rigid linkage as it powers the tag through the ear. This means the hammer fires back and releases the ear a little later and so cutting the tag off the tagstrip. It may help to disable the automatic feed as described above, because the much free-er action of the gun as you pierce the ear may actually mean a better 'follow through' ? Let me know it if helps.

As far as sorting out these issues is concerned, the gun and the tag will probably change. I hope that the gun change 'simply' means we need to send out new guns to our pioneers and their existing tags will work better. However the best results will probably come from a combination of new TagFaster and fresh tags.

Assuring you of our full attention at all times. Thanks to all those patient pioneering farmers taking part in yet another Brian Eadie 'live development' process !
Brian Eadie
Selkirk 26th August 2010